Chapter 8: Cores

"You heard right," Nick said standing up, quickly he deactivated the bubble with another snap of his fingers. The bubble quickly dissipated into the air and after a few seconds appeared to have completely disappeared. Nick walked over to the massive oak doors that they had entered through and gave them a push causing both to swing out widely while Asher managed to get to his feet. Turning around he noticed that Nick was waiting for him in the middle of the doorway, clearly keeping the doors open. 

"How can you eat them, do the powers get absorbed through the stomach?" Asher asked while he exited the office, asking his question to Nick as he passed him, turning his gaze to keep the director in view the whole time. 

"In a way yes, in another no," Nick said letting the door close behind them as they walked through the hallway and back down the stairs, by now people had already begun using the main area once again without worry, whatever kept them away earlier was not seemingly a problem now. 

"That doesn't matter right now though, what we are going to do first is help you sell that Bear Core and then with a little luck let you find some cores for now just follow me," Nick said to Asher as they walked past a couple of small groups. The groups they passed all varied in size and make up, some being covered in blood, dirt and other substances clearly just now returning home from battle. Others looked like they had just gotten a manicure and were ready to go kiss a politician's ass rather than fight. 

The two of them ignored all the groups though and continued walking until they managed to find what looked to be similar to the original reception counter, the only difference about this one was the massive bookshelf behind the two women who stood there waiting on anyone who approached them. The bookcase seemed to be filled with what looked like binders, Asher and Nick quickly reached the front of a smallish line that the counter had and were quickly in front of a woman who had long brown hair, sharp pointed ears, blue eyes and very light skin. 

"What can I help you with today, director?" The woman asked with a slightly high-pitched voice, it wasn't annoying, but it had a hint of friendliness to it that the woman Asher had run into earlier was missing. From her voice alone Asher felt like she might actually care more about helping him than just getting through the day. It wasn't like he had much room to judge though, when he had been working as a legal assistant, he hadn't been the nicest to people who came into the firm and bothered him with their problems. 

"We are looking to sell a Bear Core, is there anyone on the waiting list for one?" The director asked with both hands clasped behind his back. The woman furrowed her brow together for a few seconds before turning around and began browsing through the binders clearly looking for a very specific one. 

"This is the core trade area; all the adventurer guilds share their knowledge about what each core does and what combinations abilities can have. We then use this information to create the ban list along with an area where adventurers can sell or trade cores to people who are looking for specific ones," the director said to Asher, Asher nodded along while taking everything in. From the looks of it this seemed to resemble the stock market from his world, or at least the stock market from movies he had seen. 

"Ah, here we are," the woman said, interrupting Asher from his thoughts. The woman had turned around after finding the binder she had been looking for, the binder was massive and clearly held at least a thousand pieces of paper, each one threatening to break the damn thing. With clear expertise the woman opened the binder about halfway and began running her finger down the page, it only took her a few pages of doing this before her eyes lit up with satisfaction. 

"We have two people who have requested a Bear core, one is Lisa Therman and the other is Rob Markas, both put the request in a few months ago but neither have been able to find or nor has anyone brought one in for the guild to sell," the woman said taking a second to confirm the information she had just shared and then looked up to the director for some sort of praise.

"Ugg those two huh," the director said with a long groan, pinching his nose with two fingers while pushing his glasses up with his other hand, clearly, he wasn't a huge fan of the two but what they could have done to annoy someone like him made Asher extremely curious.

"Is there something wrong with those two?" Asher asked, hoping to gain some insight into the average Adventure and what could possibly make the director so annoyed. 

"There is nothing wrong with them as adventures, but as people they are completely insane, they are both tankers for different parties but insist on competing with each other by seeing who can take the biggest hit without dying," the director exclaimed, getting louder and louder as he went on. After finishing he just went back to pinching his nose again trying to figure out the best course of action. 

"Uhhhh," was all Asher could get out, the smile he had on previously completely leaving his mouth replaced by a slack jaw and utter confusion. He had expected people who fought monsters to be weird, but he hadn't expected them to be this bad. 

"Why would they want a Bear core then? I thought it would make you more like a grizzly. How could they possibly want that?" Asher asked the director with complete sincerity. The director looked at him for a second before he sighed and just shook his head at the ground. 

"Cores don't only make you take on attributes from the core itself, they also give powers dependent on the core's affinity. The bear core is known for giving taker related powers and is a fairly cheap option for those who are trying to go down that path, the only downside is you might get a little hairy by using it," the director said after looking up at Asher. Asher could only think on, did he want to keep the core, was tanker powers worth getting a little hairy and perhaps having a weird nose if the girl's ears in front of him were anything to expect. 

"Which one is offering the most money?" The director asked after seeing Asher go into a deep thought. It seemed like Nick didn't want Asher going down the tanker route for some reason. While the idea of someone making a decision for him bugged him, he figured that the director knew what he was doing. He would just have to trust him for now and talk to him about it later. 

"Lady Therman has bid two ten gold for the core and Mr. Markas has bid 9 gold but is offering various spices to go along with his bid," the woman said while keeping her finger on a specific line in the binder. After she finished writing the info down on what Asher would have called a sticky note in his old world, and in this world as well if it had been sticky on the bottom, she closed the binder and placed it back in the hole it came from. 

"Well, there you go, which one would you like to sell it to, I recommend Therman as she is offering the more gold but if you are into cooking Markas's offer might be worth in then, depending on how many spices he is offering," the director said turning his head towards Asher, he was clearly expecting him to decide right now what he was going to do. 

"I am not a great cook, but I do want to learn, sadly I think I am going to have to sell it to Therman, I can just buy spices later on if I need to," Asher said after taking a second to ponder on his two options. He had gone back to considering keeping the core but, in the end, had decided not to, the director was clearly very adamant about him selling it and Asher would be stupid not to take the advice of a senior, at least this way the director would still be willing to help him while he was getting used to this area. 

"I will let lady Therman know right away, if you would just place the core in this chest I will get you the gold in one day," the woman said smiling, she reached under the table and produced a small wooden chest placing it on the counter while opening its lid. There was nothing inside as Asher had expected but he could see what looked like runes similar to the pentagram engraved into the wood itself. He could only assume that they were some sort of protection array, it wouldn't make sense otherwise, how else would they keep people from stealing cores.

With a sigh Asher quietly said "inventory," and thought of the core once it was open, then with a glance of his eyes the screen was gone, and the core was firmly grasped in his hands. With a look down he decided to see if he could gain any useful information about the core before he placed it in the box.